This story spans more than three-quarters of a century and includes a deeply hidden family secret that was discovered just in time to turn a tragedy into a miracle.

At the centre of it is 33-year-old Patrick Hennessy, who has a rare, genetic disease called X-linked Alport syndrome that almost inevitably leads to kidney failure. Hennessy’s maternal uncle died from it, which is how the family found out that it is in their genes.

“I had a biopsy done when I was 23 that confirmed I had Alport’s,” says Hennessy. “I was advised in 2014 that I would need a transplant, but at that point I thought I had another five to eight years on my kidneys. I was wrong.”

In February 2016, he went to St. Paul’s Kidney Care Clinic as a precaution before signing a contract to work as a chef on a private yacht. The news Hennessy received stunned him.

“They told me, ‘Your body is so polluted, it’s absolutely amazing that you’re even walking around. We won’t put you in the hospital and do emergency dialysis. But you have to be here tomorrow and we’ll put in the line.’”

Hennessy should have known. But he had been in denial about his kidneys shutting down, rationalizing the tremors, anemia and needing two to three naps a day as a reaction to the dark winter days.

To stay alive, he spent three days a week hooked up to a machine for two or or more hours as his blood cycled and recycled to filter out all of the waste, salt and extra water than healthy kidneys automatically dispose of.

After the first day, Hennessy was an emotional mess. “It literally sucks the life out of you. A couple of hours after it’s over and you feel like a zombie.”

But by his third session, Hennessy realized how badly he had actually been feeling.

“Even my taste buds had been suppressed. Food suddenly tasted so good, it was amazing for me to experience,” says the chef.

But by March, it was clear that dialysis was not going to be enough. He needed a transplant. He needed a donor. For the optimal results, it was preferable that the donor be alive and a family member.

Since Alport syndrome is genetic, that was a bit of a problem.

Hennessy’s mom, Jane, has it and will also likely need a transplant in a couple of years. His brother, Alex, is likely four years away from needing a new kidney. Their sister, Megan, carries the gene, but doesn’t have the syndrome.

However, his father Roy was certain that he would be a match.

“’Take mine,’ I told him. ‘We’ll do a plug and play.’”

A few days after the younger Hennessy told him he needed a donor, the retired broadcasting executive flew from Toronto to Vancouver. Roy grew up here and made quite a name for himself as the morning man on “Boss Radio” (aka CKLG) in the 1960s and ’70s before moving into broadcast management.

But Roy, now 74, didn’t even get past the first stage of the five-step process to becoming a donor. He takes blood thinners.

And here is where the story starts to get bizarre.

The same day that Roy was rejected as a donor, he got a startling email from an adoption agency in Victoria.

“I’m a bastard,” explains Roy. “I was 31 when I found out at the 70th birthday party that I’d thrown for my father. … About 90 minutes into the dinner, one of the blue-rinsers grabbed me by the arm and wouldn’t let go.”

She told him what a wonderful thing he had done for his father. He nodded, thanked her. She held tight. Most sons wouldn’t do something like that, she said, especially not ones who are adopted.

Roy was stunned. Raised as an only child by loving parents, he suddenly no longer knew who he was. But if he wasn’t Roy Hennessy, who was he?

A few weeks later, Roy went to a lawyer to try to find out. But it was 1973, and adoption records were sealed.

Roy never told his parents that he knew he was adopted, and they died without ever mentioning it.

Fast forward several decades to when Roy’s daughter and Pat’s half-sister Shannon was in law school. She found out that B.C. adoption records were no longer sealed. So, she got the forms, filled them out, and got Roy to sign them.

A year later, Roy got a legal envelope filled with a thick bundle of papers.

“Every piece of information I wanted was redacted — the location of my birth, my parents’ names,” he says.

The only things not blacked out were the date of his adoption and social workers’ reports from home visits in 1942.

Roy summarized those reports in an email to his kids and ex-wife, Jane.

“I am compelled to inform you that I’m gay,” he wrote. The social worker had described him as “a quite happy, gay young lad.”

Roy put it all aside until Patrick’s sister, Megan, nudged him into action. Adoption laws had changed, and once again Roy filled out forms and waited.

In March 2016, on the day Roy was rejected as a donor, he got an email. Not only had his mother been found, she was still alive and thriving in Victoria.

Roy was 74. His mother was 89. Born June Lehman, she had grown up in the Fraser Valley near the mountain that bears her great-grandfather’s name.

When she got pregnant, June was sent to Vancouver to what was known then as a home for wayward girls.

She never had the chance to hold her infant son. But she named him Lyle after the doctor who delivered him — James Lyle Telford, who was also Vancouver’s mayor.

Within a few days of the initial email, June’s son, Gary Ryder, called Roy.

Roy held his breath as Gary explained that even three-quarters of a century later, their mother still felt the sting of shame. But after consideration, she had decided that she owed it to Roy to meet him.

In April, Roy walked into the airport arrivals lounge in Victoria carrying a sign that read: I want my mother.

June was sitting there with Gary and an iPad that she had used to track Roy’s progress across the country.

“She’s a little, bitty thing,” says Roy. “I walked up to her and said, ‘June, may I please call you Mom?’ She was shaking.”

Then, Mother and son held each other for the first time.

A month later — in June, naturally — the whole extended clan celebrated her 90th birthday on Grouse Mountain.

That is when Gary met Pat for the first time. They’d all been warned that Pat had had dialysis the day before and would likely be a bit tired. And it wasn’t until the gondola ride down that the two had a chance to talk.

“I told that I understood that he needed a kidney,” says Gary. “He said there were three or four people being tested.

“He’s the type of gentleman who didn’t ask. But I phoned him a couple of months later and asked, ‘How do I go about doing this?’

“How can you not step forward and at least say you’ll get tested?”

The testing began in September. On March 9, Gary got the results. The 57-year-old was a match.

“When he first said that he would get tested, that was amazing that he was willing to do that,” says Pat.

But he didn’t want to get his hopes up even then. Already close to a dozen people — family, friends and even strangers — had been tested and weren’t a match. Others had promised to get tested and never did.

“I never held anything against anybody because for someone to give up an organ is mind-boggling,” says Pat.

Pat Hennessy with his uncle and donor, Gary Ryder, the day after kidney transplant surgery.PNG

Gary never had a moment’s doubt about the four-hour surgery, the recovery time and the prospect of living with a single kidney rather than two.

“I always said that I had the easy part. I had the option at any time of saying that I didn’t want to do it,” says Gary. “He didn’t have that choice.”

“He never once made me fell that I owed him anything,” says Pat. “I never felt anything other than he genuinely wanted to see me back on my feet. It made my receiving it so much easier.”

There was one condition, however.

Pat, a diehard Canucks fan, had to agree to cheer at least part of the time for Gary’s Montreal Canadiens.

They had surgery on July 17. By then, they’d named the kidney ‘Howie’ for Howie Morenz, the first Canadiens player to have his jersey number retired.

‘Howie’ is nearly a kilo and one of the largest the two transplant surgeons had ever seen.

That meant Gary’s took longer because it was harder to get Howie out. So was Pat’s because his organs had to be moved about to make room.

But their recovery was lightning fast. A day after surgery, neither needed pain medication. Pat was released from hospital four days earlier than scheduled.

Little more than three weeks after surgery, both said how well they feel. Pat does have some discomfort as his body adjusts to Howie’s size, while Gary says he can feel his organs shifting into the empty space when he turns over in bed.

Gary is already back at work and Pat expects to be working again within three months. He still has blood test every couple of days as doctors adjust the dosage of the anti-rejection drugs that he’ll need to take for the rest of his life.

Was it fate or luck? Who knows. Pat sums it up in a single word “amazing.”

Gary is more voluble. “We’ve both had positive tears at times. We’re just — wow — this all worked out and it’s all good.”

As for Roy who found both a mother and, by extension, a kidney donor for his son? “Sometimes in the middle of the night, I get up and just look out the window and shake my head. It’s really surreal.”

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